


Six Sentences

by Deepdarkwaters



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 21:59:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 36
Words: 5,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12713766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deepdarkwaters/pseuds/Deepdarkwaters
Summary: 1 sentence in my tumblr ask + five sentences to finish.





	1. Merlahad: bum squeeze

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from hisreindeerjumper: It wasn't very often that Merlin felt the sensation of Harry's large palm on his arse cheek, but the lack of familiarity didn't make it any less appealing.

It wasn’t very often that Merlin felt the sensation of Harry’s large palm on his arse cheek, but the lack of familiarity didn’t make it any less appealing.

“I distinctly remember you once saying how disgusting it was having to watch happy couples wandering round the park with their hands in each other’s back pockets.”

Beside him, Harry huffs a quiet laugh that turns the chilly winter air visible in front of his mouth, and points out, “Well, I wasn’t a member of the club then, was I?”

Merlin feels him sliding his fingers deeper between the layers of denim, treating himself to a cheeky little squeeze, and halfheartedly objects, “Please, it’s difficult enough to walk in snow on these bloody peg legs without added distraction.”

“Perhaps you could weld ice skates to the bottom,” Harry suggests with that innocent blinking Bambi look on his face, “or skis.” But he slips his arm around Merlin’s waist instead, and lets him lean against his shoulder all the way home.


	2. Merlahad: Take it out SLOWLY.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from concernedlily: "No, just take it out SLOWLY."

“No, just take it out slowly.”

“Yes, thank you, Hamish,” Harry snaps, looking ridiculously disgruntled with his hair standing up every which way and his cheeks rosy pink from the heat and the panic; god knows where he found the frilly pinny he’s wearing over his suit. “I might have known you’d be a backseat driver in the kitchen as well as the car.”

Hamish raises both hands in surrender and goes to lean against the counter with his glass of whisky while Harry carefully takes the heap of charcoal that was trying to be a roast chicken out of the smoking oven.

“I don’t suppose you’d accept a blowjob instead of a romantic dinner for your birthday?” he asks morosely. “I’m good at those.”


	3. Merlahad: Prosthesis cheating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "Did you seriously adjust your prosthetic legs so you'd be taller than me now?"

“Did you seriously adjust your prosthetic legs so you’d be taller than me now?”

Merlin looks bemused. “I’m sorry, Harry, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You did, don’t you dare deny it! Get over here and stand back to back and let’s see.”

He goes, but only Roxy sees the mechanical movement of his metal legs folding an inch or two shorter, and the tiny conspiratorial grin he gives her when Harry’s proven wrong.


	4. Merlahad: Kentucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: Eggsy couldn't help but notice the underlying emotion on Merlin's face as he observed Harry through the two-way mirror, but couldn't quite place what it was.

Eggsy couldn’t help but notice the underlying emotion on Merlin’s face as he observed Harry through the two-way mirror, but couldn’t quite place what it was.

“Hey,” he said quietly, “you alright?”

Merlin made a murmuring noise that was probably supposed to mean yes, but he didn’t look anything like alright. He was following Harry’s movements all around the padded room, watching him as closely as he used to watch the recruits, only this time he wasn’t writing anything on his ever-present clipboard.

“Heading off for Glastonbury in a bit, you gotta promise me you’ll let me know if he remembers.”

He nodded, and Eggsy left, but he had some weird feeling that Merlin might still be standing there staring when he returned so maybe it wasn’t so difficult to place that emotion after all.


	5. Harry/Elton: The Bitch is BACK

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: And suddenly, Harry realized that Sir Elton John had just made a pass at him.

And suddenly, Harry realized that Sir Elton John had just made a pass at him.

Amongst the rainbows and farts of glitter going off inside his head, he heard himself say rather gallantly, “Bar the doors when I go, and stay safe until I return. Don’t be afraid; I will come for you.”

“Well, that’s definitely worth staying alive for,” Sir Elton John said through the spread of his beaming, lascivious grin.

Harry winked at him, straightened his tie, and headed for the door with The Bitch is Back playing in his head and one of Sir Elton John’s boa feathers tucked into his pocket as a good luck charm. Saving the world had never felt so spectacular.


	6. Merhartwin: Jealous?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from thisbirdhasflown: "Do you ever get jealous?"

“Do you ever get jealous?”

Eggsy leans against Merlin when he says it, hesitantly at first because Merlin’s not always much in the mood to be tactile, then with more confidence when he raises his arm to let Eggsy snuggle closer against his side.

“Not sure what that would accomplish,” Merlin replies, with his mouth touching Eggsy’s temple in something that’s almost a kiss. They watch Harry together for a while, asleep in his favourite armchair with his mouth hanging open and Hamish the puppy cradled in his arms, kicking and dreaming. “He asked me the same once, and I told him to look at how often he almost dies. He can kiss you all he wants if it gives him another reason to keep dodging bullets.”


	7. Tilwin: Pretend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "Do you want me to pretend I'm Harry?"

“Do you want me to pretend I’m Harry?”

“What are you… babe, _no_ ,” Eggsy says, horrified, taking both wet hands off the strap-on he’s stroking with lube and raising them either side of his head as though Tilde’s arresting him. “This ain’t Harry, this is you.”

“In his house,” she says, quiet and sounding far more uncertain now than she did a week ago in her prison cell, “and his bed, in his sheets, watched by all his dead bugs.”

Eggsy surges up to kiss her, forgetting what a mess his hands are and stroking them through her sweaty hair. “It’s you,” he says against her mouth, pulling her down on top of him and guiding her cock inside, “this ain’t nobody but me and you.”


	8. Merhartwin: Kentucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from darcyfirth: "I'm sorry Eggsy. I didn't know you were here."

“I’m sorry, Eggsy. I didn’t know you were here.”

“Well, where else am I gonna be?”

“In bed,” Merlin suggests, coming to stand next to him in front of the two-way mirror, “seeing as it’s almost four in the morning.”

“Yeah, well,” Eggsy says miserably, “just feel like I have to keep checking he’s still there, he’s real, he ain’t some fucked-up hallucination.”

Merlin makes quiet little sound of understanding, and they stand there until dawn watching Harry sleep silent and oblivious in his padded cell full of butterflies.


	9. Merlahad: Hide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from thatgirl-who: "And you thought you could hide it from me."

“And you thought you could hide it from me.”

“Hide what?” Harry asks. He seems to think that if he plays dumb and makes his face do that innocent Disney princess thing with the blinking and the dimples, Merlin will be charmed enough to let the matter drop, which - no.

“I _saw_ you,” Merlin says, “drawing cock and balls all bloody meeting again”–then he actually looks at the page he’s just yanked out from under the pile of unfinished mission reports on Harry’s desk and there’s nothing there but ‘Hamish Hart’ written a hundred times.

“I’m always in favour of adding cock and balls to any occasion,” Harry says, sounding nervous for perhaps the first time in his entire life, “but this might feel just as nice now the law’s decided to treat us like human beings at last.”

Somewhere between bickering about name changes, breathless praise of his legs in a kilt, and a quite ridiculous amount of ferocious kissing, Merlin realises they just got engaged.


	10. Hartwin: Favourite singer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "I can't remember who your favorite singer is because you keep changing it every five seconds!"

“I can’t remember who your favorite singer is because you keep changing it every five seconds!”

“Nonsense,” Harry says severely, “it’s definitely Elton John.”

Eggsy types it into the password recovery security question bit very slowly to make sure he’s spelling it right, and again he gets a big red X saying nope. “It ain’t Elton, try again.”

With not even a hint of shame, Harry suggests, “It might be Zayn Malik.”

“Fucksake, you wanna sort this midlife crisis out right now before you hurt yourself.”


	11. Merhartwin: John Denver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "I never want to hear that damn John Denver song again."

“I never want to hear that damn John Denver song again.”

“Well you won’t have to,” Eggsy says, too tired after the flight home to self-censor his way out of thoughtlessness, “cos nobody else we know listens to that shit.”

Harry leans his head against the cool cab window and sighs.

“Sorry,” Eggsy says miserably, “fuck, I shouldn’t-”

“It’s quite alright,” Harry says, finding Eggsy’s hand on the seat between them in the dark and squeezing it gently, just once. “The number of times I said the same thing to his face.”


	12. Hartwin: Roxy walks in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from zombiisheep: When Roxy walked into the office, she hadn't planned on catching Eggsy on his knees in front of Harry, Harry's trousers around his ankles.

When Roxy walked into the office, she hadn’t planned on catching Eggsy on his knees in front of Harry, Harry’s trousers around his ankles.

But she was a spy and a lady and generally an all-round sensible, practical person who neither shocked easily nor let anything - including her boss’s penis - come between her and her job, so she cleared her throat and calmly said, “Arthur, here are the phone transcripts you requested for the Mulligan case.”

Eggsy made a muffled sound of alarm and started to take his mouth off Harry’s cock in a panic, then appeared to change his mind and shuffled into the footwell of the desk to hide from her instead.

“Thank you, Lancelot,” Harry said, devastatingly formal and polite in an attempt to mask his embarrassment, “you may leave them on my desk and I’ll comb through them this afternoon.”

“Yes, sir.” She placed the folder by his blotter and added, “Please remind Eggsy our table at Le Gavroche is booked for eight,” before leaving them to it and cracking up in horrified giggles in the corridor.


	13. Merlahad: Freebie list

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from captlorca: "Merlin, if you're not going to take advantage of these Elton tickets with me, then I won't be held responsible for what happens backstage without you."

“Merlin, if you’re not going to take advantage of these Elton tickets with me, then I won’t be held responsible for what happens backstage without you.”

“You can’t say that to your husband,” Eggsy half-whispers, feeling a curious mixture of horrified and excited and looking between Harry and Merlin like they’re players in a tennis match.

“I don’t see why not,” Harry says, looking thoroughly unconcerned. “He has my full blessing to sleep with Marianne Faithfull and Dolly Parton if the occasion ever arises.”

“What, like, at the same time?”

Merlin’s eyes have gone a bit dreamy and unfocused and it takes an extremely strong mug of builder’s tea to get him to pull himself together.


	14. Merlahad: Complicated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from thisbirdhadflown: "What do you mean, you've never been in love?"

“What do you mean, you’ve never been in love?”

Back to back in the only bed on the Statesman plane home, Eggsy can feel Harry go completely still. For a moment he thinks Harry might pretend not to know what he’s talking about - and that would be alright, he’d take that hint and shut his stupid mouth - but that kind of cowardly nonsense just isn’t his style.

“Romance has never really been my cup of tea,” Harry says simply, but there’s something lurking deep in the pained tone of his voice and Eggsy waits for a moment to see whether it’s going to come roaring out.

“But,” he prompts, and hears the ghostly sound of Harry breathing out a miserable little laugh behind him, no amusement in it.

“But perhaps life is more complicated than that.”


	15. Merlahad: Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "I'm not sorry for lying."

“I’m not sorry for lying.”

Harry’s drunk when he defensively confesses; it’s rare enough to be brand new to Eggsy, but there’s something deliberately crisper and neater than usual about the way he shapes his words and Eggsy recognises it at once.

He looks up from his place on his mum’s living room carpet, surrounded by the shock of photo albums he felt too raw to look at before he found out Harry was still alive: pictures of Harry on holiday with Merlin in some awful Spanish seaside town in their twenties, and of them holding hands and laughing in San Francisco in 1995, and a mirror selfie of Merlin standing behind Harry and leaning over his shoulder to kiss the dimple in his cheek, which is labelled below in Merlin’s familiar neat copperplate “Hart made it to 50 without blowing himself up - Spencer owes me £10.”

Harry meets his stare from the doorway, looking dishevelled with his tie loose and his hair a mess - he’s not dealing with any of this particularly well now they’ve reached the reflect and rebuild stage of things, no fucking wonder - and Eggsy says dumbly, “You didn’t have to lie, you could’ve told me, you think I’d have a problem with it or something?”

Harry’s face twists a bit before he manages to say, “I didn’t think of him in the moment before the gunshot, that part’s true - because that’s what the job does to you, it wears you down to the bare bones and you need to be ready for that because it’s impossible to stay without letting it. But the rest, of course, I should have told you the rest”–-he falters then, and Eggsy leaps up and goes to him as fast and fiercely as he did in the Statesman cell when Harry remembered at last that he wasn’t alone.


	16. Hartwin: Matchmaker Merlin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "Do you trust me?"

“Do you trust me?”

“No I fucking don’t!” Eggsy almost yells at him, and Merlin feels a smile sneaking onto his mouth that he can’t quite hold back as the boy rants on, “Drowning people who just want a job, chucking us out a plane making you think we got no parachutes, trying to run over my head with a fucking _train_ , bruv, you’re sick.”

“Harry’s waiting for you,” Merlin reminds him, looking pointedly over to the window in the door where they can see Harry sitting in the shuttle already and glancing at his watch. He drops his voice to a conspiratorial sort of murmur and quickly adds, “Listen, Eggsy, in case you haven’t worked this out for yourself - Harry likes to feel wanted, he likes sharing all his suave impressive tricks of the trade with the one in a billion people he considers worth his precious time.”

For a moment he thinks Eggsy might bristle and protest, but the boy knows when he’s been rumbled and only says after a moment to let the idea of _Merlin giving him pulling advice_ tick through his brain, “Right… so if I kinda play the struggling dimwit damsel… fuck, he really likes that kinda thing?”

“Ask him to show you how to mix martinis,” Merlin suggests, and shoos Eggsy and his suddenly crimson cheeks towards the door.


	17. Merlahad: Not broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "You are not anymore broken than I am."

“You are not any more broken than I am.”

Merlin can be the most stubborn donkey in the world when he gets the urge, turning his wheelchair around and refusing to look at him, but after this many years of friendship Harry can tell he’s really listening simply by the angle of his shoulders.

He continues no more gently, “I’d exchange both of my legs for a working left eye in a second, because I know you’d drop everything to invent me the most ridiculous, magnificent prostheses with all kinds of bells and whistles, and I’d feel like a superhero that someone named Chris might play in a film. You’re going to walk again, I’m never going to regain my full field of vision.”

“Yes you will,” Merlin says suddenly, ferociously, as he spins his chair back around to face Harry, “because I’m going to invent you a weaponised fully-functioning bionic eye.”

He hurtles off to his workshop, as Harry thought he might. All he needed was a project.


	18. Merlahad: Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "Truth or dare?"

“Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Harry says immediately; he’s had enough whisky tonight to strip away every last one of his inhibitions, which were about as flimsy as cobwebs already.

“Dare you to tell me the truth when I ask you a question.”

Eggsy sounds incredibly smug about his cleverness, and Harry head-cocks to look at him the same way Mr Pickle used to look at everyone, shrewd and suspicious, before giving up and shrugging his consent.

“Are you and Merlin a, you know”–-Eggsy breaks off to make a lewd hand gesture he almost definitely wouldn’t do if he were sober, the first two fingers of his right hand diving in and out of the loose fist of his left-–“a thing?”

Harry doesn’t answer, he doesn’t need to; he scans the Christmas party crowd for Merlin, devastatingly handsome in his new midnight evening suit and standing a head taller than the people he’s talking to, and lets Eggsy work it out from his helpless, woozy smile.


	19. Eggsy & Merlin: Puppies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "I can't believe you got me into this mess!"

“I can’t believe you got me into this mess!”

The puppies are sitting perfectly on Harry’s office floor like they’re showing off at Crufts, Buddy on the left and Hamish on the right, both grinning up at Eggsy like they think they deserve treats. Of course they’re pretending neither of them had anything to do with the figurine Eggsy found lying in two broken pieces on the floorboards beneath the bookcase ten minutes ago.

“Just cos it’s ugly as fuck don’t mean you’re allowed to break it,” he says as sternly as he can bear to, and the little fuckers actually glance at each other the way Eggsy and Jamal used to do when they got in trouble in primary school and were trying not to crack up laughing. He shoves his superglued fingers right in their idiotic little faces, though it only makes them squabble for a moment over who gets to puppy-kiss him first, and adds, “You broke Harry’s horrible shepherdess and now I got my fingers glued together, anything else you wanna add before we call it a day?”

Then Merlin’s voice drifts in from the corridor outside–“Galahad, there’s a suspicious looking wet patch on the hall carpet I want you to come and deal with before I reach the count of three”–and Eggsy gives up, just lies down on the floorboards with his stuck fingers in his mouth as if that might melt the glue and the two stupid (perfect) little dogs jumping on his belly like a trampoline.


	20. Eggsy & Harry & Merlin: Best men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "Merlin, Harry, I have something to tell you."

“Merlin, Harry, I have something to tell you.”

Merlin’s about to make some kind of dry, what-did-you-break-this-time type of comment, but the gentle nudge of Harry’s elbow into his side makes him close his mouth. Eggsy looks troubled, dark smudges under his eyes as though he’s been sleeping horribly, and he sits there on the sofa across the coffee table from them just scraping his fingers through his hair and staring down at the carpet for an awkward, silent few moments.

“If something’s the matter,” Harry starts gently, but Eggsy looks up in alarm and shakes his head, interrupting with a hasty, “No, nothing’s wrong, it’s just - it’s the opposite, but–”

“For heaven’s sake, Eggsy, spit it out,” Merlin says, getting a sideways glare from Harry but at last a genuine smile from Eggsy.

“Well, apparently I ain’t allowed two best men, so you’re gonna have to arm wrestle for it cos how the fuck am I gonna decide.”


	21. Merlahad: Missing Eggsy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "Eggsy left the room without looking back, it was better this way in the end."

Eggsy left the room without looking back; it was better this way in the end. Harry, too, turned away from Eggsy’s retreat and went to furiously jab at the crackling fireplace with the poker, silent and miserable.

“Harry,” Merlin said quietly, "he’ll be alright.“

“Of course he will,” Harry snapped without turning around, “he’s going to Sweden, not his execution.”

He heard the rumble of Merlin wheeling his chair closer, then the steady weight of a consoling hand pressed to his shoulder. “I’ll miss the little bugger too, but we’ve got work to do.”


	22. Hartwin: Arm wrestle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "Merlin looks at Harry then at Eggsy, contemplating his answer."

Merlin looks at Harry then at Eggsy, contemplating his answer.

“You could flip a coin,” he suggests eventually, “or arm wrestle for it.”

He watches them glance at each other, then half a second later they both strip off their jackets, remove their cufflinks, and begin to roll up their shirt sleeves.

“I’m Galahad,” Harry says firmly, kneeling by the coffee table and planting his elbow right in the middle.

“ _I’m_ Galahad,” Eggsy insists as he drops to his knees opposite Harry and grasps his hand, “you’ve had your go.”

Merlin counts them in then leaves them to it in case the tension breaks at last and they start screwing over the table.


	23. Merlahad: Wake up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "I lied to Eggsy; I said I didn't think of anything before I was shot but I thought about you"

“I lied to Eggsy; I said I didn’t think of anything before I was shot but I thought about you.”

Harry keeps his eyes on his thumb tracing over Hamish’s miraculously unblemished knuckles because it’s easier than looking at the miles of bandages on his head and the remains of his legs. “I could have told him, of course, I know he’d never object, but even with a brain half-full of butterflies I could see he’s not like us. We’re comfortable old antiques, we’re part of the furniture by now, but he belongs somewhere else and I’m glad he’s made his choice; I believe it’s the right one, and it’s better for him to realise it now than in thirty years when it’s probably too late.”

The number of times it’s been Harry unconscious in the hospital bed and Hamish sitting on the wobbly plastic chair waiting to find out if he’ll live is awful; this is unbearable just once, never mind a dozen or more, and Harry kisses Hamish’s clutched hand in something close to desperation.

“I promise I’ll tell him, and you as well, if you only promise to _wake up_.”


	24. Merlahad: Jealous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "Really, Hamish, there's no need to get jealous over Elton John, for god's sake."

“Really, Hamish, there’s no need to get jealous over Elton John, for god’s sake.”

“I’m not,” Hamish says, methodically colouring in teeth and drawing handlebar moustaches on all Harry’s LP covers with a Sharpie.

“This is as bad as the time you egged Dougie Poynter’s house because I dared to go to a McFly concert without you. Worse, even.”

“How is it worse?”

Harry holds up two tickets, fanned between his fingers like playing cards, and says, “Because you’re fussing for nothing, you fool; this time you’re coming with me.”


	25. Merlahad: Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "Sorry Eggsy, I lied to you on the plane"

“Sorry, Eggsy, I lied to you on the plane.”

“What, about not being arse over tit for Merlin?” Eggsy says, and Harry spends an undignified few minutes spluttering into a handkerchief after accidentally inhaling half his martini in surprise.

“Yes,” he says eventually. “That was supposed to be a secret.”

Eggsy looks at him sideways. “Yeah but the thing is, I’m kind of a professional spy and I had a fucking brilliant teacher.”


	26. Merlahad: Barbie and Ken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: Pink was always Harry's favourite colour.

Pink was always Harry’s favourite colour. And weddings were always his favourite social occasion, mainly because drinks were usually free and he found a weird sordid kind of gratification from comforting people’s crying old aunts.

“Is it too much?” he asks as Hamish fusses with his waistcoat buttons.

“Yes, it’s very Barbie.”

“Excellent,” Harry says, sounding pleased and taking Hamish’s offered arm on the way out to the car. “Thank you, Ken.”


	27. Hartwin: Kissing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from justt-myth: "Harry, do you really have to teach me how to kiss properly, again?"

“Harry, do you really have to teach me how to kiss properly, again?”

“I do if you’re planning to continue this hellish attack on my tonsils for this entire twenty-four hours,” Harry says severely.

Straddled across Harry’s lap, Eggsy rolls his eyes and looks sulky; it shouldn’t suit him nearly as much as it does.

“Fine,” he says, sounding exasperated, but - like the last two times - he melts against Harry’s chest at the very first touch of his tongue and swears a swoony little _fuck_ into his mouth. Then he laughs, giddy with the gin and the pheromones, and says, “You think Rox and Percival are doing this too?”

“Eggsy, for god’s sake!”


	28. Merlahad: Ginger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: As he was talking with her, Merlin noticed Harry glaring at Ginger over her shoulder.

As he was talking with her, Merlin noticed Harry glaring at Ginger over her shoulder.

“You don’t like her,” he said when she left. It wasn’t a question, but his tone always tended to make people want to reply to anything he said, and Harry looked uncomfortable for a moment as he sorted through his words for the right ones.

“She tried to drown me. She almost had me ripped apart by horses.”

“So did I,” Merlin reminded him gently, and Harry frowned as though he could feel something huge lurking in his brain just beyond his reach.


	29. Hartwin: Kentucky kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: Eggsy was so relieved to be remembered, he didn't notice his mouth was on Harry's until it was too late.

Eggsy was so relieved to be remembered, he didn’t notice his mouth was on Harry’s until it was too late.

He was vaguely aware of movement in the doorway, Merlin starting to come in but about-turning as soon as he saw what was going on, then one of Harry’s hands came to rest on his hip and any kind of sensible thought became difficult. If it weren’t for the little puppy making a displeased noise at being squashed between them, who knows how long it might have gone on.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry,” Eggsy said, or more like gasped, pulling away and scrubbing his tingling mouth with his sleeve; he could feel the lingering warmth of Harry’s clutching fingers as though they’d burned right through his clothes, and a matching heat flushing his cheeks. “I’m just gonna, I should, Merlin probably wants to, um-”

But Harry said his name again, dazed and marvelling, and this time when Eggsy rocked up on tiptoe it was to fling his arms around Harry’s neck and hug him so tightly and for so long that the puppy fell asleep in the warmth between their bodies.


	30. Merlin & Tequila: Names

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: “The fuck kind of name is Hamish?”

“The fuck kind of name is Hamish?”

Merlin’s face goes stony, narrow eyes as sharp as lasers; smarter men have crumbled under this look, but Agent Tequila is a stupid bollock with no apparent danger radar. “The fuck kind of name is Randy Stallion?”

“That’s the first gift my mama ever gave me so you better watch your mouth.”

“Well, I hope she kept the receipt,” Merlin says coldly.

Across the room Eggsy is stuffing his entire sleeve in his mouth trying not to laugh out loud, and Ginger is watching all of them like they’re fascinating lab specimens she’d quite like to dissect.


	31. Merwin: Mm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "mm, yes, keep doing that, lad. How did we not think about this before?"

“Mm, yes, keep doing that, lad. How did we not think about this before?”

“Speak for yourself,” Eggsy says indignantly, licking the mess off his fingers. “I been doing this for years, since I was like twelve!”

“And you never thought about sharing before?”

“Fuck no, you got to earn skills like mine.”

Merlin picks up another slice of cheese on toast and takes a huge bite from the corner to gaze reverently at the secret layer of peanut butter under the melted cheddar. “I’m taking you off the Hong Kong mission and you’re making my lunch for the next month.”


	32. Roxy & Eggsy: Skills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: “Did you just... un-knot a cherry stem with your tongue?”

“Did you just… un-knot a cherry stem with your tongue?”

Eggsy holds his hand out in front of her face and Roxy spits the stem into his palm so he can stare at it in amazement.

“An all-girls boarding school teaches you a lot more than just maths.”

“Fucking hell. You gotta show me, that’s sick.”

He spends their next debrief knotting and un-knotting cherry stems with his tongue while defiantly holding blazing eye contact with Harry, until Roxy kicks him under the table and tells him to behave.


	33. Merlahad: gdi Marvin Gaye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: “No amount of Marvin Gaye will make me less cross with you.”

“No amount of Marvin Gaye will make me less cross with you.”

Hamish is far too drunk for any more words than absolutely necessary and just waves a flippant hand vaguely in Harry’s direction to signify how much he believes that statement. He turns the stereo volume dial another several notches to the right, excruciatingly loud for almost four in the morning, and begins an awful lurching sort of boogie-walk across the living room towards Harry like some horrible uncle at a wedding trying to get from the bar to the dance floor when Come On Eileen starts playing.

“Let’s get it on,” Hamish croons along, mouthing wetly at Harry’s neck in a way that might be kissing if he’d had several fewer pints and absolutely failing to make any impression on the knot in Harry’s dressing gown belt because he seems to have forgotten how his fingers work.

“Eggsy,” Harry says crossly into his phone, and gets some kind of barely-comprehensible drunken bellowed greeting in his ear, “next time you take this fool out drinking, please have some consideration for those of us who need our beauty sleep and return him before dawn.”

Hamish interrupts, helping himself to two handfuls of arse and lustily singing, “GIVING YOURSELF TO ME COULD NEVER BE WRONG!” in unison with Eggsy on the the other end of the line until Harry stabs the end call button, picks up Hamish - the small dog version, not the drunken husband - and goes back to bed in a sulk.


	34. Eggsy & Harry & Merlin: Karaoke horror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: Merlin thought he was being smooth; everyone else was thinking something far different.

Merlin thought he was being smooth; everyone else was thinking something far different.

“Sooo,” Eggsy says slowly, pinning Harry with a hard stare so he can’t go slinking out of the pub to escape the embarrassment, “he always been like this, or is it new?”

“I wish I could say it’s some kind of strange manifestation of trauma,” Harry tells him, pointedly avoiding the way Merlin’s trying to catch his eye across the room, “but I’m afraid he’s always been a karaoke fiend when he’s in his cups. I’m surprised it’s taken you this long to find out.”

“Yeah, well, we never quite got to the mates going out boozing stage.”

Eggsy shuts up and just watches, fascinated and feeling vaguely ill, as Merlin plants his fancy new prosthetic feet wide and proud on the sticky pub carpet and bellows out the last chorus of Stand By Your Man.


	35. Harry & Eggsy: Yikes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: “Well, that just doesn’t seem sanitary.”

“Well, that just doesn’t seem sanitary.”

Harry’s face is utterly expressionless staring down at the PornHub video on his tablet; Eggsy can’t tell if he’s revolted or joking or what, but either way he’s starting to think this get-Harry-his-first-boyfriend scheme was a mistake.

“I dunno,” Eggsy says as patiently as he can, “I’m sure he, you know, gave his arse a good wash before the other one stuck his tongue up there. And there ain’t some big gay rulebook saying that’s what you have to do in bed anyway, you can get off with anyone any way you like.”

When Harry looks at him at last it’s so much easier to read him, everything’s written there in his anxious eyes. “I don’t think nightclubs or Grindr or pornography are for me, but I do appreciate the continued effort.”


	36. Harry & Eggsy & Ginger: Padded walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: He never thought he’d see those padded walls again.

Harry never thought he’d see those padded walls again. It was a strange feeling having them in front of him here in the new HQ, like revisiting a place from a dream he could only remember with the very periphery of his mind.

When Eggsy came in - without knocking, of course - he dropped his paperwork carelessly on Harry’s desk so he could go and investigate the huge parcel sitting in front of it. “What the holy fuck’s all this?” he asked, poking one of the padded panels with the toe of his shoe then dropping to his knees beside Harry to help him rip away the rest of the bubblewrap. When he looked up at last he was smiling, startled and a little bit enraptured the same way Daisy always looked at Miyazaki films. “Elizabeth sent your butterflies.”


End file.
